


The Chore Chart

by whisperbird



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-20
Updated: 2013-11-20
Packaged: 2018-01-02 03:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1051983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whisperbird/pseuds/whisperbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren presents a brilliant idea to the new Levi Squad. It doesn't go over well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chore Chart

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second Shingeki fic and all I seem capable of writing is humor about the kids. They need some levity, I feel.

"What the hell is that?" 

It wasn't said in a confrontational way, but Jean -- despite his best efforts, and especially where Eren was concerned -- had a habit of sounding more abrasive than he intended. 

And he was a little tired from chopping firewood and a little annoyed he'd had to do it in the first place. He'd caught Mikasa, despite everyone's best efforts to encourage her to take just it slowly one more week, ax in hand, giving it her best. 

Jean had confronted her (again, not out of confrontation, but there was a slight edge to his voice, he'd admit it) and Mikasa had simply said, "It has to be done." Jean hated that he was such a nice guy that he'd taken the ax from her and told her if it had to be done, he'd do it. She raised an eyebrow, but he was insistent and truly wished he hadn't been because she appeared to be doing a damn fine job. It was better than not that they made sure she was in working order physically before trying anything too tiring but Mikasa got by on doing and not waiting. It was probably worse for her, at least mentally, to not be able to tax herself.

Jean watched as Eren finished tacking up the large piece of paper to the wall, and looked over his shoulder. "It's a chore chart."

"Yeah," said Jean, and he felt his mouth flatten into a fine line. "Did Captain Levi make it up?"

"No," said Eren, whose expression mirrored Jean's, the only difference a wrinkled brow and Jean had kept his expression neutral. "But it's done with his suggestion and he trusted me."

"I'm sure he trusts all of us--"

"Jean." Eren smoothed the last of the wrinkles from the paper and turned fully to face him, placing his hands on his hips. Jean was so tempted to call attention to this motherly detail, but held his tongue, at least until Eren finished what looked like a point.

"For the last few days, we've been running all over the place, not getting anything done. I mean, that argument about the sweeping yesterday shouldn't have happened. It's really really important we work together."

"Don't you think I don't know that?" Jean countered. "We're comrades and we do work well together. We know we do. Just because we get into a petty argument about who needs to do the floors --"

"That's it though! If we don't work together and cooperate on everything as much as we can, what are we going to do in a real situation?" Eren stared at him pointedly.

"What we've always done." Jean understood what was going on. Eren was something of Levi's protege, for lack of a better term. Or at least the one who knew him the best. Eren respected Levi -- not that they all didn't -- to an extent that he was willing to argue over the most useless, frustrating things to gain his mutual respect. 

Jean had noticed the way Eren deferred to Levi beyond him being respectful to a squad leader. He seemed to be trying to prove something to him ... though what, Jean wasn't exactly clear on. Maybe Eren was just hopped up on his power as temporary second-in-command or relishing his secret desire to be the team father. Well, nobody was Jean's father but Jean's father and certainly not little Eren Jaeger. They were team mates and Eren's mother hen power trip was going to end here.

"Are you two arguing again?" 

"Mikasa!" Eren tilted his head to peer around Jean's shoulder at her arrival. "Good, I just finished putting this up."

"You two shouldn't argue," she said as she crossed the room, stopping in front of both of them in a swish of skirt, her arms crossed. 

"We're not arguing," Eren clearly lied. "We're discussing the chore chart!"

Mikasa looked up at the monstrosity on the wall. She opened her mouth to say something, but the door slammed open, Connie and Armin carrying armloads of firewood into the kitchen.

"Wipe your feet!" Eren yelled leaning around Mikasa to give them a stern glance. Armin looked a little uncomfortable. Connie rolled his eyes and made an obvious show of wiping his feet.

Jean felt his frown deepen.

"I got fire wood," he pointed out, feeling only a bit silly.

"See?" said Eren, jabbing a finger in the air. "This is why we need the chore chart."

"The what?" asked Connie, who looked in danger of another eye roll.

"You don't do anything halfway, do you?" Armin sighed.

"Go get Historia and Sasha and we'll discuss it," said Eren. 

Connie deposited the firewood next to the stove and brushed off his hands. "Sasha!" he bellowed. "Hey! I know you're under the bed eating an apple or something!" 

"I could have done that," Jean muttered, feeling a tension headache. He and Armin exchanged glances. The voices of reason in an unreasonable world.

Historia walked into the kitchen followed by Sasha.

Do you still feel uncomfortable not calling me Christa?" Historia asked, looking at Connie. Connie went red around the ears a bit and shook his head.  
"No, I just wanted to embarrass Sasha ... I didn't know you were back there."

"I was using the bathroom," Sasha announced, "And I'm telling you this so you don't go around telling people I eat things under the bed, Connie, because I don't."

Jean smirked, always appreciating a good, snappy telling off. 

Connie slinked to the table and sat down, idly brushing a few crumbs off onto the floor with his palm. Eren's eyes flicked to the floor and he said nothing but had the look of it on his face.

"So," Connie said, his cheek mushed into his fist, "chore chart, let's hear it."

Eren cleared his throat. "You see behind me, we have the chore chart. Captain Levi suggested we get more organized."

Eren stared back at a sea of blank faces. He began again. "We're very disorganized right now, and I think it's in our best interests to give everyone something specific to do. We switch up by week."

Jean raised his hand, sarcastically. He did have a question, but was hoping to make Eren feel silly for being so formal. Eren took it as an olive branch of participation and Jean felt a bit bad but asked anyway. "How do you figure out who gets what chore in which week?"

"I'm glad you asked!" Eren said, sounding like a salesperson now, a salesperson desperate to peddle their wares. In this case, he was trying to sell his organization.

Jean hadn't really looked at the chart, and decided to see what was in store while Eren launched into his explanation. 

+----------+---------+-------+--------+----------+----------+-----------------+  
| Eren | Armin | Sasha | Mikasa | Connie | Historia | Jean |  
+----------+---------+-------+--------+----------+----------+-----------------+  
| Sweeping | Dusting | Food | Food | Firewood | Dishes | Toilet cleaning |  
+----------+---------+-------+--------+----------+----------+-----------------+

"We just move chores down a week. Like, see, if I start with the sweeping, next on the chart is Armin and he gets it the next--"

"Why am I on toilet duty first week?!" If Jean wasn't annoyed before he sure as hell was now. 

"Wait until I'm done expla--" Eren countered, glaring.

"And why is Sasha on food?" Jean shot back. 

"She asked!" Eren yelled. "She's the only one who took an interest--"

"And you believed that?"

"I'm a good cook!" Sasha crossed her arms defensively. "If you don't want me to cook, I can hunt but you won't let me hunt!"

"It's always food with you," said Connie, laughing and Sasha puffed her cheeks, looking every bit rightfully offended.

Mikasa raised her hand and said calmly, "Why am I not on firewood? I can --"

"What is it with you and firewood!" Eren said, "Armin, you got a complaint? You're the only one besides Historia who hasn't complained."  
Before Armin could say anything Historia sighed.

"I don't mind the dishes," she said, shrugging. "And I think all of you guys should be a little more lenient and willing to work with this. Did any of you ever play house when you were younger?"

Mikasa nodded and Historia only needed a bit of agreement seemingly to go on, "I mean, think of this as playing house if you're all going to be childish about being adults."

Jean sighed and rubbed the back of his head, trying to not feel guilty. But seriously, toilet cleaning? On the first week? He wouldn't have blinked had it not been Eren doing the chart. There was just something so unwholesome about that.

A light silence followed Historia's speech, the only sound was the breeze outside and a branch near the window scraping against the glass. Jean didn't meet Eren's eyes but he knew Historia was right. Eren was right.

Then, almost as if on cue, Armin said, "I cough a lot when I dust, Eren, you know that."

It was like an eruption of almost everyone who was prone to it yelling at once. Jean could hear himself yelling over the din, "Who gives a damn, Armin! I'm doing toilets!"

It kept in this vein for another few minutes, Eren getting increasingly angry, threats to rip down the chart, at least one voice of reason every once in a while saying, "Really, are we going to argue about this?" before being told to shut up, and in turn becoming angry again.

It all settled down (and Jean was amazed by the power one presence had) when Captain Levi strolled in. 

He came in like a phantom, quietly, unannounced and simply spun on his heel, standing behind Armin, who was closest to the door that had been slightly ajar and simply said,   
"Hey."

It wasn't a conversational hey, it was an attention-getter. Everyone suddenly had the look on their face of a cat whose tail had been pulled. Eren placed his best long-suffering expression on his face.

"Captain Levi," he began (a tattling baby, thought Jean), "they won't listen. Even Armin won't listen."

Everyone looked scandalized at this betrayal on Armin's behalf, and Armin looked weary.

"Also," Eren said, looking embarrassed, "they won't wipe their feet, Captain."

Levi was still standing on the rug and gave his feet a quick wipe, as for demonstration and strode over to Eren, a small but commanding figure and surveyed them all. Jean knew that, like him, they were struggling to keep the guilt from their faces with no avail.

"I left Eren here in charge of the housekeeping and he said things hadn't been running too smoothly," Levi began quietly. "So we smoothed it out. You've all been through a hell of a lot of danger already. I'd think shit like this would be welcome. Do you think you're too good to clean?"

There were several sullen "no sirs" at this question.

"Sometimes you just gotta do things you don't wanna do," Levi finished and Eren nodded at his words and said to them, "Please listen to the captain, he's telling the truth."

"I'm not here," Levi said, his dark eyes looking at each face, "to babysit a bunch of kids. I'm here to have a group of capable soldiers under my command, which I do believe you are. Like I said, it's not all killing titans and saving the damn day. Sometimes you gotta stick your hands in a fucking toilet and scrub the shit out of it. Understood?"

There were several more sullen "no sirs" and Jean knew Captain Levi was very invested in this chore thing, because that was more of a battle speech than a lecture.

"And," said Eren, "there will be consequences for slacking off. If you don't do your chores, you don't eat. Simple."

"That's a little harsh," Sasha said, looking worried.

"As long as you do your work, you eat." Eren shrugged. "It's fair."

"I'll be overseeing the cleaning more often than not," Levi said. "I want this place to shine, you got it?" He looked around once more and walked out of the kitchen, as smoothly as he'd come.

Connie let out his breath. "He can sure be scary when he's ... well, when he's talking ..."

"He's not a bad guy, when you get to talk to him when he's not mad," said Eren. "He ... just likes it clean ..."

Jean still didn't understand, but conceded. "Fine, I'll clean the damn toilets. And everyone else," he said, looking back at his comrades, "You do your damn chores and let's not disappoint the captain, okay?"

There was a general sound of approval through the room, before everyone dispersed again to their respective duties, noticeably less sore about said duties, Mikasa deciding to help Armin tie a handkerchief around his face to help with the dust before she sat down to the task of peeling many potatoes and Jean wondered if there were any gloves in his place to aid in the duty of the bathrooms.

Before he could ask Eren, who was so intimately knowledgeable about cleaning the place, he caught sight of Eren's face. Crestfallen wasn't the right word and neither was troubled. He looked a little wistful, of all things.

"You got them to listen with just one sentence, huh," said Eren and shrugged once more before walking off towards the bedrooms, broom in hand.

Jean watched him walk off for a moment, and knew that Eren felt a little defeated, but not in a resentful way. He may not have understood Eren's drive to prove himself beyond the call of duty, but knew Eren did have the right idea, with regards to organization. He would admit it himself -- rallying the troops with chores was a brilliant idea and Jean was -- and a bit ashamed to admit it -- a little offended at being told what to do by Eren. He didn't want to read into it too much because over-thinking off-topic wasn't a luxury they were afforded much anymore. 

He couldn't get over the look on Eren's face, when he wondered at Jean's leadership abilities, however minute the wondering. It was almost as if Eren was paying him a compliment.

Jean decided he'd take it that way, and rolled up his sleeves.


End file.
